w-west's Comic Reviews

This issue seems a bit familiar. It reminds me of Grant Morrison's The Return of Bruce Wayne. That's a good thing, even if its the same character. Doing the same thing is frowned upon, sure but its the things that Snyder does differently when playing with the history of Bruce Wayne that makes this a lot more interesting than just another potential flashback heavy story.

Points to the creative for providing an interesting issue of Simon vs Jessica, but points off for only leaving your villain with a page full of trash talk. I don't know how much we'll see of Sira, Nazir and Farid going forward but it will surely be interesting to see a Green Lantern series with fleshed out supporting characters that aren't superheroes. Good luck with that Sam Humphries, the pressure is on.

I'd also say that popping up at the shore is a little lame when you're building tension with every page previous. It feels less like Dunkirk and more like Transformers. Explosions now, suspense later. A story like this needs to feel more grounded, like the Sword to the leg scene. I say that while fully understanding that this is a Green Lantern comic and both Simon and Jessica are superheroes and whatever Jess may say, throwing a giant green fist at things is pretty much standard practices here. I get it. But a balance can be made, it just wasn't here.

Its just unfortunate that nothing in this issue blows me away and while all the information presented seems like its new reader friendly, it definitely relies on my previous knowledge of the Red Lanterns to care whether they have plans or not. Otherwise, I'd just be looking at two menacing looking aliens sitting on a pile of skulls with their cat promising a Red Dawn. Don't get me wrong, I love that name. The Red Dawn sounds awesome, I just don't think this issue did enough to sell me on it and certainly did not do a good job of distinguishing Sam Humphries voice from Geoff Johns who co-wrote this issue with him. I don't know who did what or how much input Johns truly had, but when Robson Rocha becomes the artist on this biweekly series with Green Lanterns #1, I'll be looking for Humhpries to make me a believer in him and these characters all over again.

Sinestro #12is a really nice book to look at and while the dialogue is a little dry, and the character logic is intentionally hidden, its a decent enough premise with high enough stakes (unless you're morally bankrupt) to keep my interest high. I'll be next month.

As I mentioned, probably a few times now, Bunn ends both storylines going through this series. Plots are on the backburner now as Bekka, Soranik, and Lyssa all get some spotlight in this issue and while its done well (excluding Lyssa's reveal of the being the planet destroyer and admitting that she'll betray him again if its for his betterment), I don't know what to expect next month. There was nothing here that screamed “You must come back next month!” There's nothing here more than character interactions to get me back. I fear Cullen may not have enough tricks up his sleeve to keep the momentum going up. See what I did there? Fear? You got it.

Overall this was probably the best look into Sinestro's past that DC has put out. Sure some of the more obvious tropes are here, but enough new layers are added to give old and new readers something to look forward to. So it looks like we won't be seeing Secret Origin II that would have featured Sinestro in a prominent role, this is a good replacement if that story never happens.

So briefly, that final page needs to be discussed, I guess. Sinestro came to Kahndaq for potential information on The Paling and finds their not-quite-dead mystery leader (The Pale Bishop) is a freaking Guardian of the Universe! These little guys will just not go away, will they?! Definitely a cliffhanger that should make things difficult for Sinestro and ramp up the amount of action this series desperately needs. I mean, besides Lyssa's unforgivable kick-landing, the only fight scene was Sinestro & Black Adam versus skeletons…Let that sink in a bit.

In the end, The Pale Bishop has a bunch of ships ready to unload on the Sinestro Corps. Probably would have been a bigger and better moment if we had either seen this roundup or not had been treated to the Wonder Woman pages.

Unfortunately, there's not enough of that and more of the same issues are even more prevalent here. If we took out the DC heroes/villains and just kept it to Paling vs Corps, these interactions would be fan-fucking-tastic! If we got more Arkillo reacting to being a “hero”, more Lyssa Drak scratching the eyes out of her enemies and more Soranik guiding her little violent padawan around, then I'd be a happy fan. Well, there's always next month. After all, its Sinestro vs The Pale Bishop. One can only hope that things get better from here.

The art just slag a bit in the final pages, the DC heroes are still given too much screen time and the cliffhanger seems a bit weird, considering Sinestro could just rest easy for a week and be good again. Still, it doesn't take away from all the good karma that was built before then. This is one helluva issue.

But I guess you would consider that a small gripe right? I did previously state that I definitely enjoyed the Mongul officially returning scene and that the art was good so what's there to be upset about? Surely, I'm not still upset with the DCU cameos am I? Yes I am. Surely, I didn't cringe with Bullen's odd placement of Superman and Wonder Woman's potential affection for Bekka? Yes I did. The problems with this issue were that of old and still very minor. However, if this was basketball (see how I eventually made my way back to March Madness?) and you have three turnovers in a game, that's not the worst thing in the world but it looks particularly bad if you don't do anything positive to make people forget about all your bad. That is the best possible basketball analogy you could hope for when comparing this issue. You're welcome.